Challenges posed by a rising Hispanic population in Durham

Schmidt describes the challenges posed by a rising Hispanic population in Durham. Health professionals are confused about the kinds of services to which these new immigrants (Schmidt is presumably referring to non-citizens) are entitled. Schmidt does not believe that health care should be denied to anyone, but communication difficulties present barriers of their own despite good intentions, she believes.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Evelyn Schmidt, February 9, 1999. Interview K-0137. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

EVELYN SCHMIDT:

Around '92, that we were seeing an increasing number of
Hispanic population. And if you use the calendar year, we went from
two-plus percent to four-plus percent, to seven-plus percent, to
nine-plus percent. And in 1998, thirteen point six of our individual
users were Hispanic.

ANN KAPLAN:

So from '92 to '98, you went from basically two to
thirteen to fourteen percent. You jumped ten to eleven percent at
least.

EVELYN SCHMIDT:

Now one of the things that concerned health centers very much is that the
immigration laws, as you know, make it very difficult for people to know
what services they are entitled to, what ones they can get on an
emergency basis, what ones they never can get,
what ones they jeopardize in terms of their legal status. Health centers
have always said in objectives that basically we should not have to ask,
as we differentiate ourselves from those places that had to. And at long
last, just several months ago, we officially do not have to ask you
whether you're legal or not. Very frankly, I don't
think either education or health should be made to police it. We should
be delighted that people want to be educated and that people want to be
healthy, because this actually adds to our economy.

ANN KAPLAN:

So when was the health center officially able to say--?

EVELYN SCHMIDT:

That was in the latter part of '98. But we never had to ask.
But the negotiations to make it official were going on, and those were
finalized so that we were never put in the position of having to ask
like some of the agencies that are required to. We never were, but the
question was, whether we going to remain that, or were we going to be
pushed into that classification where you had to. And so, we
don't. As I said, my personal view is health and education
should not be the barriers.
I laugh to myself, because we would not be a nation if we did not have
immigrants. And many of us would not be here if it weren't
for our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, who migrated to
this country for one reason or another. So as I said, once
you're here, want you healthy, want you educated, because as
in many of the previous groups to come in, many of the people coming in
are taking jobs that have not been filled before. Others are coming in
and bringing resources. I think that we've been enriched by
the community. I laughingly say we have a culture now which adds to our
dimension of music and art and also culinary!
[Laughter] So let's not, I mean seriously--.

ANN KAPLAN:

Limit our resources.

EVELYN SCHMIDT:

Yeah. Let's look at the enrichment that comes to your
community too when another culture comes in and brings its heritage as
well as themselves to your community. But as I said, I think, on the
other hand, we really have to be able to say, "Do we have the
access for people to get the services they need?" And
we're so monolingual in this country, because you can go
three thousand miles and speak only English, unlike in Europe where many
people--and they don't have to be college graduates--speak
several languages. Our immediate response is, "Why
aren't you speaking English?" not realizing maybe
this is an opportunity for us to begin to educate in another language. I
laughingly say we could have a generation that's bilingual if
our kids could learn Spanish in grade school and on through high school.
They could have friends that they could talk with and use it. That would
be good for whatever kind of business, trade, or profession you go
into.

ANN KAPLAN:

I want to jump back just a little bit. You were talking about how with
immigration laws the way they had been, and in some ways continue to be,
that it's difficult for the Latin American population, in
this area or in many areas in the US, to get the right information about
where they can get services, what kind of services they can get.

EVELYN SCHMIDT:

For instance, as you heard, now we have CHIP, which is the Child Health
Insurance Plan, which is really very good, meaning families between a
hundred and two hundred percent of poverty now can qualify for an
insurance plan which is not Medicaid but is being handled by the state
employee insurance, which is actually handled through Blue Cross/Blue
Shield. And basically it's a very good plan because it has
added the enhancement things that Medicaid has,
like hearing, vision, and dental. And if you were born in this country,
you are eligible, but you have to help the family understand that they
are not jeopardizing their status. In other words, the family may not,
or some of the other kids may not be, but if you fill out the form, no
one is going to come after you in terms of your status.

ANN KAPLAN:

Now this is what I would ask is, did you or did the health center staff,
have experiences--? If you can offer any anecdotes or stories or types
of experiences from '92 on.

EVELYN SCHMIDT:

Only in that we recognized that we needed to be sensitive to the newer
population coming in. I remember when a Hispanic woman came down
because, she complained, she felt that she was being discriminated--.
What I realized was that sometimes when you don't speak the
language, you sort of hold back, and it looks like you're
being negative. It's your own inability to communicate
that's reflected. And so met with staff and explained to them
that body language means a whole lot and that we really to try and get
some interpretive services for them. But in the meantime, your body
language tells.
Well, staff really took that to heart, and we've since hired
some translators and tried to get some bilingual staff. But as I said,
for the moment at least, people felt that they wanted to help. It might
take a little time till we got someone to translate, etc., etc. At the
same time, shortly after that incident, I was walking in the lobby and
there was this man. He had a little African-American youngster on one
side and a little Hispanic youngster on the other. And the kids were
looking at a book and pointing like to a horse. And one youngster would
say it in English and the other youngster would say it in
Spanish. And I said, "If we leave it to the kids,
we can get the world's problems settled." But
it's that kind of exchange of communication that we should be
promoting, whereby we learn as well as they learn.

ANN KAPLAN:

At what point did the health center begin to have interpretation or
Spanish services?

EVELYN SCHMIDT:

We've had a translator for several years now, then we added a
second translator. Now we have someone who's bilingual at the
information desk. We have some bilingual people in finance. We have
bilingual people scattered in some of the other services, so that again
there was recognition that this was the new population coming in that
needed to have services.
And again it isn't just us. They need to be able to go to any
of the agencies and be able to feel that they're comfortable.
And the agencies feel comfortable, because if they don't
speak the language, there's interpretation service available
to them, because sometimes I do feel sorry for staff too.
They're not necessarily bilingual and suddenly
they're being besieged with questions they can't
answer and there's no support for them to get the help. So
it's a two-fer, on both sides. As a public agency, people are
entitled to services. Now you're going to have to be able to
offer those services in more than one language.
Here we only have one language. I know of one of the New England centers,
they are infiltrated with many, many people from the Asian countries,
and one of the centers has umpteen number of dialects that they have to
be able to deal with. So we're only really having one major.
We have others. We do have some coming in from other parts of the world,
but basically only one really major. Because people are moving into all
parts of our country, and as you have noticed,
I mentioned to you before, the paper said a few months ago Durham County
is the twenty-fifth fastest growing county for Hispanic population for
the years 1990 to 1996. And you are beginning to see many of the
states--I call them the inner states rather than the border states or
the coastal states--that are seeing populations moving around, because
people are going where they think there are job opportunities, whether
it's construction--.
And although North Carolina has always been a large migrant state, as you
know, that's where I think we mentally still only had people
in the migrant--moving, right? Now suddenly you are seeing them settling
into your urban areas or your surrounding areas to your urban areas. And
bringing not just medical problems to you, but bringing the problems we
all have, whether it's spousal abuse, child abuse, drug use,
all of the problems no group is exempt from, economically, racially.